Springfield daily republic. [volume] (Springfield, O. [Ohio]) 1887-1888, 1887-08-18
1T IS NOT BUSINESS"
PRENTICE MULFORD TELLS WHY
MEN DO NOT SUCCEED.

SheN lSC WILT oNo ICIlS WI
MEN DO NOT SUCCEED.
Time Spent in Aimiess and Unnecessar,
TaIk-Efrect of Worry on IL. system
Carrying L"ad-Cheating Othe,
People-At Loose Ends
You'll excuse me, trust, for saying so
/ but | don see any sense or any use il
your being overwhelmed with business y
l"u should not let anything overwheln
You. lou re the worse off for being over
whelmed by anything. The fact is, more
than half yon do and spend your time and
struggle ON isn't business at all You'll
stand and talk with man for half an
hour when neither of you have anything
10 say, and when you're through you'll
suddenly reCollect that you're too late for
/ your train or your interviews with some
/ body else. Then you rush of in a hurr'
/ You carry hurry with you. Iou inject
everybody with it you meet. Iou carry
on your interviews in hurry, thinking
all the time of the next thing you've got
/ To do. Iou leave the business concerned
/ in that interview about half done. because
/ you We're not able TO fix or center your
mind wholly on it. You leave business
with tags and loose ends. You are
always in fret and worry because Of the
consequences Of your hurried state of
mind-and you call this business. ~
| You have forty things" to think Of and
| do at once. You shouldn't have forty
thing 10 do at once. You should have
only one thing to do at once That's bust
ness. You mislay things. You forget
things. Gou tuck important papers away
in unimportant and obscure rat holes
! hardly conscious of what you're doing
| You lose minutes, hours and strength in
! looking for them You call that business
All of your mistakes and worries You dig
nifty by the name of business You get
IN a worry and a hurry and forget where
you've laid your hat and you call the
hunting of that hat business Well. it
is business, but it's the wrong kind of
business. Iou get your thread in a tangle
instead of a properly wound ball and You
call the tangle business. You carry a
tanCle around with You in your head and
call it business. You carry your tangle
to bed with you. You think it over and
over. The same old tangle all night, in
stead of sleeping rs you should TO get
strength for tomorrow, and you call that
''business. y Real business is making
business of sleep when the time comes to
deep and not going to work when you
should 90 TO sleep. You've no more busi
ness carrying your work TO bed with you
chan a wood sawyer has TO carry his saw
and buck TO bed with him.
You're worry and a pressure and a
nuisance at times to your friends and
those who are trying to he your friends in
always talking about the load you have to
carry in your business. The less Of a load
business is 10 a man the better he does
business. If you're horse jockey and it's
a pleasure for you to sell horses, You'll
sell horses and possibly sell the people you
sell them TO. But if it's load and a worry
,ld an annoyance for you to sell horses,
Chen you won't sell many. The more n
man loves his work the less of load it is
to him and the better he succeeds in his
work. The thing that's hest done is the
thing or act that gives most pleasure in
the doing. \ live salesman loves TO sell
goods. A dead salesman who looks like a
funeral when he's selling goods and
mUurnS while selling them that he must
sell them won't sell many goods. Your
idea of business for the last ten years
has been the borrowing Of $4,000 from
anybody who was simple enough TO lend
it TO you 10 start the business ~ Iou
will then in three years time spend IS, 600
on yourself, lose the other s. 900 and
wind up with nothing.
You had no idea of doing any one
wrong or deceiving any one. But when
You got the money you cheated yourself
into the delusion that your own expenses
were n very necessary part of the busi-
ness and you We're tempted to enlarge the
expenses. You're always in this way
chasing phantom and getting out of one
business into another. Your real business
is that of losing other peoples money.
Your real business is that of cheating other
people into your own Gelusions. You are
the most dangerous Of all swindlers, be-
cause you are really honest and a believer
in your own swindie. You see millions
in it, ~ and magnetic other people in see
ing your own shadOwy millions. You
have considerable ability as talker, a
reasoner, prevailer. Iou are the man
who can make Others see gold mine in
hill of barren rock. You are the man who
can cover in imagination mud fiat or
sand waste with a full built town and
make corner lots worth thousands before
the stakes are driven and while the frogs
are cOncerting upon them.
When you are talking business you
don't talk to the center, the pith, the rule
of the thing You don't aim at any bull 5
eye You hum and haw, and talk all
round the board, and all round what
you've got to say or to propose, because
you're afraid to say it. You never know
exactly what you want yourself. OF
course yOu can't then make others know
what you want. That's one reason why
so many times you get nothing at all.
You lose too much time in feeling around
and taking soundings. When the main
channel is marked and buoyed out straight
before and that channel is the talking
straight out of what you want to do to
the other man, if he'll do it, well and
good: if he won't, he won't, and there's
an end of il. More real business can be
done in five minutes than you do some
times in five hours.
You'd get along and do well II you
didn't carry your brains as loosely as you
do your papers in your hat. Your brains,
like your papers, are always flying away
when you take your hat off. You're a
cyclone, you are-plenty Of force, wind,
which could, properly applied, sail ship
or run a windmill; but the way you let it
on tears things all to piv,
yourself Prentice Mulford in San Fran
cisco Chronicle.